We are very
pleased to announce that the American Association for the History of
Medicine has awarded the J. Worth Estes Award in the History of
Pharmacology for 2004 to Professor Paulo Alves Porto, of the Centro
Simão Mathias de Estudos em História da Ciência (CESIMA) and
Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados em História da Ciência Pontifícia
Universidade Católica de São Paulo, Brazil, for his
essay:
"Summus atque felicissimus salium: The Medical
Relevance of the Liquor alkahest," in: Bulletin of the History of
Medicine Vol. 76 (2002), p. 1-29.
Paulo Alves Porto traces
the elusive quest for a universal solvent--the alkahest--from a
brief mention by Paracelsus to its glory days with Joan Baptista van
Helmont in the early 17th C and its quick descent into an object of
chemists' mockery. In van Helmont's vivid dreams, if not in his
laboratory, the alkahest represented the promise of the wonderful
elixir that would reduce all other drugs and substances to their
primary matter, free of dross. Paulo Porto's article illustrates
with prodigious research and clear prose why we remember van Helmont
at all: he bridged in important ways the arcane mysticism of alchemy
and modern chemistry.
Through Professor Porto's article we
see how van Helmont, despite his belief in the transmutation of
elements (even believing that he had succeeded in getting gold from
mercury, a conviction that looks to modern eyes more like "Brabantic
idiotism" than chemical genius), reflected the interests of his age
and yet provided a means through which his successors like Glauber,
Starkey, and Boyle could make important contributions to medicinal
chemistry. Thus, through examining van Helmont's "fiery water,"
Professor Porto provides us with an extremely useful pharmacological
history of an era, a man, and a substance and how all three
contributed to modern medicinal chemistry. To do any one of these is
praiseworthy enough. To do all three as effectively as Paulo Porto
has done suggests a study with which J. Worth Estes himself would
have been proud to be associated.
The Committee was delighted
at the number of excellent papers we received--twenty-five papers
from around the world were submitted for this year's award. |
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